“Instead of offering me a rise at The Guardian, they offered me a new sofa.Barbara Ellen is also one of the few people who was working class in origin and didn’t go to university. Then I found out they had offered Barbara a kitchen, so while Polly Toynbee and her ilk get paid in actual money – we weren’t worthy of money. We were worthy of a fucking sofa. I didn’t feel rage to myself, but when I found they had done what they had done to Barbara Ellen, I was so fucking cross. There is no other way I can interpret this, we were the only people working at the newspaper who hadn’t been to university and weren’t middle class women.”